The present invention relates to an electronically controlled camera which functions to prevent red-eye phenomenon when a photograph is taken of a person using a strobe device.
Conventionally, a strobe device is used to provide illumination in order to take a photograph of a person when an ambient light level is low. Before the photograph is taken, the pupil of the eye will normally be dilated since the ambient light level is low. When a strobe device is discharged, the pupil cannot constrict quickly enough in order to compensate for the bright light. Therefore, light enters the pupil, and is partially absorbed in the retina. The remaining light is reflected from the retina, and exits the pupil. This is a problem if the strobe device is located near the photographing lens of the camera since the pupil will appear bright red on the photograph, producing an undesirable effect when taking photographs of people using a strobe device.
Recently, some cameras have reduced the effect of the red-eye phenomenon by first emitting a pre-flash in order to constrict the size of the pupils, followed by the actual flash that is used to provide the illumination necessary to take the photograph.
However, a problem with this method is that the person to be photographed may think that the pre-flash is the actual flash, and may change position or move before the actual flash is emitted. Further, since the strobe device is used to emit both the pre-flash and the actual flash, the pre-flash may be too bright.
In order to avoid these problems, an LED has been employed to provide the pre-flash. However, if the electronically controlled camera employs an active distance measuring system, an infrared LED must also be provided. Therefore, since the pre-flash LED, the strobe device and the infrared LED must all illuminate the object to be photographed, three light sources must be provided on a front panel of the electronically controlled camera. Therefore, each light source requires additional hardware such as lenses. Further, the front panel of the camera must be made larger in order to accommodate all of the light sources. This will increase the costs of manufacturing the camera, as well as increase the size of the camera.